For those who are hungering for a food-related post, here is one! All our meals are currently served at the hotel we are staying at during training (well, part of training), and food on the streets is a little harder, and trickier to get during daytime Ramadan. So, I will share what we have been served by the excellent cooks downstairs.
With Ramadan comes special foods that are only served during Ramadan. l'ftor* is the breaking of the fast once the sun has dipped below the horizon. For those of us who aren't participating in Ramadan, this has become dinner. A dinner with a lot of sweets.
To break the fast, one eats a dried date, or tmr (which are better than any dried fig I have had in the US). The rest of the meal includes Hrira soup (with chickpeas and lentils), zmita (loose flour, dried fruit, peanuts, almonds, anise, sesame seeds, etc.), and shbakiya (crispy fried dough with honey). Zmita seems strange at first, looking like a pile of spices, but is pleasantly sweet and nutty. Shbakiya will be my downfall. Thankfully it is only offered during this month, and I will surely miss it once Ramadan is over. I'm not a huge consumer of fried things, but these have the heavy fried taste. The honey lightens up the crispy dough, and oozes out as you bite into it. Hrira is satisfying, but not my favorite soup thus far. Apparently, it differs significantly in preparation from house to house.
More food to come as I am able!
*You will notice that the phonetic spelling of Moroccan Arabic includes a significantly smaller amount of vowels.
photo: Clockwise, starting from the top- shbakiya, zmita, dates
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8 comments:
Sounds interesting--I think Betha is rubbing off on you. You could be the next resturant reviewer for the Post! Love, M
opps--spelled restaurant wrong
Lisa--
I agree with your mom--really great, descriptive writing! Is there anything better than fried dough?
We are still having food conversations here, but they aren't nearly as fun without you! Hope you are well!
Betha
Shbakiya sounds awesome! Maybe if I plan my visit right I'll get to try it myself. Mmmmm...
M- I'm not sure I would be up for the job.
Betha- I'm certainly no writer, however, I think you did rub off on me a little. I'm not getting to talk about food in quite the same way here, but there is no shortage on new things to try!
Raich- Or even better, maybe I can learn to make it! I think Ramadan might be a hard time to come here. On one hand it is an amazing introduction to the culture, but it seems everything is a little topsy-tervy from normal operation. I am told that tempers are a little shorter since people are fasting (although I have nothing to compare this too and everyone I have met has been wonderful), also a lot of things are closed until after sunset. Still, the Shbakiya alone might be worth it :)
That Shbakiya looks really good. It reminds me of when we had all those Redwall feasts at your house. One time I made some kind of pastry with honey in it and when the honey cooled, it was sharp and it cut me. Raichel still does not believe me to this day that I was cut by honey.
Loda got cut by the honey from sopapillas she made. I believe her. Things like this happen to Loda. Like when my fridge ate her sock.
Ah yes, Loda and her outrageous sharp-honey stories.
BTW good memories re: the Redwall foodstuffs :)
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